The Royal Society 415 



the secretary at the sitting ; the corrected proof has to be 

 returned to the printer on the Wednesday evening, and it is 

 then published without fail on the Sunday. The communi- 

 cation, reading, and publication of a paper presented to the 

 academy is therefore an affair of the inside of a week, and 

 it is a certainty. This promptitude in the putting through 

 of work is due to the fundamental fact that when a man is 

 elected a member of the academy he enters at once into the 

 full enjoyment of all its privileges, and one of the chief of 

 these is the complete confidence of all his fellow-members. 

 When he communicates a paper, whether it be by himself or 

 by someone not a member of the academy, it is accepted 

 without question. The only limitation in the privileges of 

 members is with regard to the space that they are entitled 

 to claim in the Comptes rendus. A paper by a member or 

 foreign associate of the academy may fill six pages per 

 number, and his communications in the year may fill fifty 

 pages in all, and this as a matter of right. 



It is unnecessary to occupy more space in order to show 

 what a powerful engine the Academy of Sciences is in the 

 production and encouragement of work, or to indicate how 

 easily the Royal Society may successfully rival it. Let every 

 fellow of the society, whether he be on the council or not, 

 have complete confidence in his fellow-fellows and give prac- 

 tical effect to it, and the thing is done. The rest will follow 

 of itself 1 . 



1 See Contents, p. xxxi. 



